Generally, cooking appliances that cook food using a high heat are provided with various safety devices. Herein, an oven generating a high heat in a relatively narrow area will be exemplarily described for easy understanding. However, the spirit of the present disclosure will not be limited thereto, and can be applied to any appliance that may be a threat to a user's safety due to its heat source.
Exemplary safety devices will be described below. First, there is a door-locking device that prevents children from opening a door of a cooking appliance, thereby preventing an accidental opening of the door when the cooking appliance is highly heated in operation. For example, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0104286 and No. 10-2006-0097805 disclose a door-locking device proposed by the applicant of the present disclosure.
As another exemplary safety device, there is a safety device that can prevent children from operating a cooking appliance while they accidentally press an operation button. This safety device may be enabled by a start signal such as pressing of a specific button for a prolonged duration. In this case, the safety device will not operate even though a button of a manipulation unit is pressed. However, this safety device has a limitation in that a user needs to manipulate the safety device.
Also, since the door-locking device is configured to operate only at a high temperature, the door-locking device may not be enabled until a cooking appliance is heated to a predetermined temperature while threatening safety to a user. In practice, although the cooking appliance is not heated to a high temperature, children may touch the cooking appliance and be injured by its high heat or its components.